Aero-X hoverbike goes on sale in 2017: Star Wars racing in your own back yard for just $85,000

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It isn’t a hoverboard, but it is the next best thing: Californian company Aerofex is now taking down payments for the Star Wars-like Aero-X hoverbike. Priced at $85,000 the Aero-X certainly isn’t cheap, but if it actually comes to market as promised in 2017, I don’t think the price tag will be an issue for early adopters. The Aero-X, if it performs as advertised, will be capable of carrying up to 140 kilos (310 lbs), at an altitude of 3.7 meters (12 feet), at speeds of up to 72 kph (45 mph).

Aerofex first demonstrated its prototype hoverbike back in 2012. Back then, the prototype (embedded below) was little more than two huge ducted fans — like you might find on a hovercraft — with a bike- or quad-like frame and seat. The commercial version, the Aero-X, which is scheduled to begin flight tests in 2016, will look a lot slicker and feature an all-carbon-fiber-composite chassis, resulting in a rather lithe dry weight of just 356 kg (785 lbs). It’ll be powered by a normal gas-powered three-cylinder engine, which will allow it to carry up to two people (as long as they weigh under 140 kilos (including baggage) at speeds of up to 72 kph. It doesn’t mention it anywhere on the Aero-X website, but it will probably be very, very noisy. The fuel tank is good for 85 minutes of operation. The Aero-X is capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL).

Now, in theory, it isn’t actually very hard to strap two huge fans to a motorbike-like frame and putter around. What is hard is creating a hoverbike that’s safe, fun, and easy to control. There’s a reason no one has made a successful hoverbike before now. According to Aerofex, the Aero-X is “a hovercraft that rides like a motorcycle.” This is tough, due to something called the coupling effect. Basically, all open-rotor craft are unstable, finicky beasts that require a lot of skill to pilot. This is why you can’t just point a helicopter in the direction you want to go — there are all sorts of different forces at play that need to be controlled and counteracted at the same time, thus the helicopter’s massively complex controls. Merely leaning left or right, like on a motorcycle, isn’t enough — unless you have some clever technology that helps keep the hoverbike stable.

Aerofex says it’s solved the coupling problem, has filed the relevant patents, and thus — if all goes well — the Aero-X will be the first safe and easy-to-use hoverbike on the market.

What the finished Aero-X hoverbike will look like, hopefully

At this point, you should probably be rather excited: Like the theoretical hoverboard, there could be some really, really cool applications for a stable hoverbike. With a max altitude of around 12 feet, you could take the hoverbike almost anywhere. You could cruise over deserts, fields, hills — and with the optional “flotation pontoons,” over lakes and rivers. By talking to the FAA, Aerofex found that the bike could be classified as something like an “aerial ATV” if its max altitude stays below 12 feet, thus removing any need for a pilot license. Beyond sports and recreation, there are also agricultural, police, and military uses. Judging by the amount of thrust produced by those rotors, though, you probably don’t want to fly over anything fragile — like, you know, small animals or your wife’s roses.

But they better do while Daniel Craig is still young enough to pull it off!

Charles Thompson

Why does it have to be Daniel Craig?

Michael Patrick King

Chase? Really? The thing only goes 45mph…!

Ivor O’Connor

Needs batteries. And if they catch on fire it will make things even more exciting!

Glenn Scott

ROFL!!!

cale

Why not install solar panels?

Ivor O’Connor

Solar panels barely get super light very flimsy planes the size of 747s off the ground with a single person in them. See http://www.solarimpulse.com/

Going with batteries would be bad enough because their energy density is not as great as a motorcycle engine like they currently have. So instead of say 100 minutes of flight time with a motorcycle engine you would get perhaps only 20 minutes. Putting solar panels on it might reduce it down to 18 minutes and require a week or more to charge the batteries back.

I love wind and solar but in this case solar doesn’t work.

Nate

There is a company called Brammo in Oregon that makes very nice electric bikes with Lithium Ion cells…

They get 200km + on a charge and weigh in around half of one of these hover bikes. I think that’s 8 batteries but I’m not sure what the individual components weigh.

I’d very interested to see how big the gas tanks is on this. It sounds like an expensive 85 min of operation burning petrol. but if the weight of the tank + fuel is as such that you could replace it with enough batteries to achieve a simillar (or better) duration, this could be the coolest thing ever.

paul

Could it become more energy efficient than cars, if perfected?

Matt Menezes

My knee jerk reaction is probably not, but it’s a good question. It comes down to the energy required to overcome friction for rolling tires versus the energy required to lift the craft. The air resistance moving forward will be the same for both applications. Again, my gut feeling is it’ll be quite a bit more work to levitate and propel the vehicle than to merely roll a vehicle forward…

Boris

It couldn’t be more efficient than a car, because It spends a lot of energy churning air – just to keep above ground. Any kind of forward movement means more churning air = more energy loss. Fundamentally, flying is (much) more expensive than rolling.

Mohammad Abdullah Javed

Why not make it to run on solar power or may be lunar energy :P

cale

one question… What is lunar energy?

RBH

It’s an extra-terrestrial form of bull$h17. Maybe it comes from space cows.

Mohammad Abdullah Javed

One day you’ll know :D

Michael Patrick King

It’s kind of like what powers Zeppelins: the lighter-than-air buoyant of airheads and lunatics…

Joe

I think it would have better stability and be easier to control if you had multiple smaller fan blade engines, as opposed to the large two. You could write a program to monitor pitch, yaw and roll. Then your flight controls would compensate as needed by using one, two or a series of specific engines to increase or decrease thrust to maintain better stability and control. Each small fan blade engine could be mounted on a gimbal similar to how rocket engines control their direction.

This would also give the craft the benefit of providing multiple redundancy in the case that one or more engines failed.

massau

so a large quad copter i guess you would have to call that a “hover car”.

Jeff Vahrenkamp

Redundancy is good, but propeller efficiency increases with the length of the blade, so many smaller propellers wouldn’t provide as much thrust. Also the complexity of powering and controlling those would increase the complexity and price in an exponential manner I suspect. As complexity increases so does the chance of failure, so eventually this starts to backfire. This system is simple and elegant (But you’re right that you’re kind of hosed if one fan completely stops when you’re going 45MPH at 12ft in the air) because it has opposing blade rotation, much like a chinook, as well as some other mechanical features built to make it so you don’t have to have a hefty hardened computer to control for all your piloting needs.

Boris

If the rotors go in the opposite directions, wouldn’t it kill the gyroscope stabilizing effects (i.e., resistance to flipping over)?

Jeff Vahrenkamp

Let me work through this. the gyroscopic effect for these rotors would be in the roll and pitch. If they are connected by a rigid connector that transfers the force in these dimensions, then yes they gyroscopic effect would be nullified. However, if they are in some sort of gimble allowing freedom of motion in one of these dimensions then the effect would still work (at least for the rotor and what ever parts are able to move independent of the other rotor. While I can’t speak to the ability to rotate independently in the pitch and roll, I can say that the yaw (rotating like a fan around the rider) is locked, so the counter spinning blades can have their effect there.

Boris

One thing useful for stability would be placing the center of lift force above the center of gravity. Like in a helicopter – rotor above, cabine below.
This bike looks extremely cool, but how do they keep it from flipping over and ramming into the dirt?

Jim

The noise must be crazy. Perhaps an electric version would mitigate some noise, but still you have the problem with all that dust, dirt, little pebbles its going to kick up. Just don’t fly it around my neighborhood. I hate to see it destroy the paint job to all the cars it passes by.

ewhite06

Just hope your sunglasses/goggles don’t fall off. Those wide-open-no-protection-having spinning blades of death will make short work of them. I know it needs airflow but how about a screen or something so someone can’t accidentally fall in?

cale

well think about screen doors.

Boris

Just imagine one of these in a McD drive-though. Instant milk-shakes for anyone within 1/2 mile radius!

paul

I think small helicopters might be much more energy efficient than hoverbikes.

With this thing in the horizon, a HeliBike might be a feasible project.
And it will be fun to drive too. $100,000 for one? – I will take it.

Brossard

Free tinnitus for all the buyers (and bystanders).
That thing looks really cool, but besides the price it’s the noise that will kill it commercially. Just like the Concorde.

Why don’t they use the Coanda effect what has been used with success from many years on all hovercraft’s but without skirt. Would be more energy efficient, silent, more easy to direct the airflow under bike. This thing is a flying blender. PS: if this would have been a practical design the military would have had already a few.

Vijay Dinanath Chauhan

unless you can bring down the cost to US$ 1000 or maybe $2000, you can keep it in your ‘space junk’ labs for next 3000 years.

Adam Mitchell

Please just get some Thorium in there to power it, 8 grams of the stuff could power a car for 100 years. I wish world leaders would allow production of radioactive metals for power cells and stop burning fossil fuels because of their greed for $$$

Love the idea of this bike though, very exciting.

Mike Weedmark

Not meaning to offend, but every time someone says the word “Thorium” I brace myself for an avalanche of bullshit.

Annnnnnnd: “8 grams of the stuff could power a car for 100 years”

There it is.

godallemachtig

My future hover-bike is going to be powered with Trollium.

Sahil

A question.. How much power engine or battery to be used to lift around 150-190 kgs?

Keep in mind, most of the wonderful tech gadgets we have today started as science fiction. Someone has to think them up before someone can try to make them :)

max welte

I’d get it if it was 25,000 dollars

Owen Brady

looks fun if your well off, doubt ill ever get to ride one.

Dan Barkley

This is more like it. Computers could stabilise the flight making it very easy to operate. Cool.

Howard

I rhink vectoring vanes to change the flow of downward air would help with steer and braking effect. Perhaps a gyro to reduce continually making minor course corrections and wheels when resting in traffic or slowing down in traffic, too.

zia fuzail

bro…truely amazing….love it n wanna do it as my final year project …but need a lot information….

Sahil

A question.. How much power engine or battery to be used to lift around 150-190 kgs?

liampaulmassey

Whoever gets the chance to ride a hover bike like Luke Skywalker may the force be with you

dedmchr

OH, I want one of these!!!!

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